Jesus lives at Katherine Gorge

My apologies upfront to anyone with religious beliefs that I may offend, but today, I genuinely witnessed a miracle. Indeed, I was part of that miracle. I was saved, as were Flo and the kids from a terrible torment.
Dialling the clock back to the morning, we left the lovely camp at Coinda in Kakadu National Park and headed for Katherine 250km further South. The town gets a shout-out at the start of Crocodile Dundee. "He crawled into Katherine straight past the hospital to the pub [ after being attacked by a crocodile]."
We arrived in a Hyundi and went straight past the pub to the Nitmiluk National Park, aka Katherine Gorge.
On arrival at the park entrance, we take advice on where we can swim. Local says in 4 hours we can walk to Southern
Rockhole and swim there . "You need 4h in total if you stay there for an hour."
If I saw him again, I might be tempted to torture him because he set us off on a torturous walk. He did say there were a few steps, he did say there was water en route, but he didn't suss that in 40C with 4 young children, and big climbs znd rocky decents that he had given us bad advice.
We did reach the Rockhole in 2.75h, not the 1.5 he suggested, but only by luck since after toasting for an hour at 43C and 65% humidity, a thunderstorm broke out, and the temperature dropped 10 or 15C. When a sign said 500m to go, we were all relieved, but little did we know it was a 500m climb.
Oh shit, this is going to be hell getting back, and it might even be dark before we get back.
But then, a miracle of biblical proportions occurred. You see, our destination was on the Katherine River, and when we got there, a boat arrived, the only boat that had been there all day. And the driver had just stopped because he needed a pee for 2 minutes. So the chance of an overlap was in the region of 250:1. The tourist office had told us there were no boats operating.
You might call it a coincidence, I call it a miracle. Why? because, like Jesus, the boat driver selflessly offered to take us home.
Safely on the boat, after thanking "Jesus," who turned out to be indigenous, we began discussing "What if....[ he hadn't been there at that exact moment]" The conclusion: It would have been long and painful at best.
Safely back in town, we discover that all restaurants but 2 are closed because it's Sunday, and a Chinese or an Indian are the only options . We choose Indian to again celebrate Oscar's 7th birthday . The food was good, and Oscar was happy, [ let's forget a tantrum back at the hotel].
If you look at the pictures, you will see that the pain was not without gain.Read more